Don't you just love it when you discover a book that is totally unusual and as you are reading it you keep saying things like; this is so beautiful, and, I am totally feeling this?! Kathryn Scanlan has created a book like that, I could not believe how much it resonated with me.
Years ago the author came upon someone's diary that had been consigned to an auction. She obtained the diary then spent a long time reading it. Eventually she began doing things with it. She would extract some of the lines that the diarist had written, phrases and sentences that really struck her. This process continued for quite some time. Ultimately she distilled the diary down to the very essence of what this woman had been writing about. The diarist had been a woman of a certain age. She had lived in a small town. She had kept what is known as a five-year diary. She detailed the comings and goings, the seasons as they turned, the daily events, the losses she was experiencing. There's a gentle beauty that ripples across these pages. It is wonderful and I was so pleased to be able to talk to Kathryn about it.
The Book Nook on WYSO is presented by the Greene County Public Library with additional support from Washington-Centerville Public Library, Clark County Public Library, Dayton Metro Library, and Wright Memorial Public Library.
